Islamic Republic of Iran (1983: Doomsday)
The Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI; Persian: جمهوري اسلامي ايران, Jomhuri-ye Eslāmi-ye Irān), is a country in Western Asia. It borders the Islamic People's Republic of Pakistan (1983: Doomsday) and People's Republic of China (1983: Doomsday) (PRC) to the east, Union of Sovereign Soviet Siberian Socialist Republics of the Soviet Union (1983: Doomsday) (USSR) to the north, Republic of Iraq (1983: Doomsday) and Republic of Kurdistan (1983: Doomsday) to the west, and share maritime borders with the Gulf States Union (1983: Doomsday). At 5,663,595 km², it is the second largest country in Western Asia after the Russian Confederacy (1983: Doomsday). Iran has a population of 184,375,000 people, and is one of the most populous countries in the world. The name Iran has been in use natively since the Sassanian era and came into use in the Western world in 1935, before which the country was widely known as Persia. Both Persia and Iran are used interchangeably in cultural contexts; however, Iran is the name used officially in political contexts. The name Iran is a cognate of Aryan, and means "Land of the Aryans". Iran is home to one of the world's oldest continuous major civilizations. The first Iranian dynasty formed during the Elamite kingdom in 2800 BCE. The Iranian Medes unified Iran into an empire in 625 BCE. They were succeeded by the Iranian Achaemenid Empire, the Hellenic Seleucid Empire and two subsequent Iranian empires, the Parthians and the Sassanids, before the Muslim conquest in 651 CE. Iranian post-Islamic dynasties and empires expanded the Persian language and culture throughout the Iranian plateau. Early Iranian dynasties which re-asserted Iranian independence included the Tahirids, Saffarids, Samanids and Buyids. The blossoming of Persian literature, philosophy, medicine, astronomy, mathematics and art became major elements of Muslim civilization and started with the Saffarids and Samanids. Iran was once again reunified as an independent state in 1501 by the Safavid dynasty—who promoted Twelver Shi'a Islam as the official religion of their empire, marking one of the most important turning points in the history of Islam. "Persia's Constitutional Revolution" established the nation's first parliament in 1906, within a constitutional monarchy. Iran officially became an Islamic republic on 1 April 1979, following the Iranian Revolution. Iran is one of the world's largest economies, and is the second largest national economy in Western Asia. Iran has emerged as one of the world's largest producers of oil, and has an large petroleum industry as well as an large nuclear industry. Iran's economy is a mixture of central planning, state ownership of oil and other large enterprises, village agriculture, and small-scale private trading and service ventures. The Iran-Iraq war, as well as the crash of the oil market and loss of trading partners proved to have catastrophic repercussions on Iran's economy, but during the nineties and the beginning of the new millennium the situation would somewhat improve. Its economic infrastructure has been improving steadily over the past two decades but continues to be affected by inflation and unemployment. In the early 21st century the service sector contributed the largest percentage of the GDP, followed by industry (mining and manufacturing) and agriculture. In 2006, about 15% of the government's budget came from oil and natural gas revenues, and 51% came from taxes and fees. In the early 2050s, the GDP of Iran reached more than $5.3 trillion, the second largest in Western Asia. Category:Nations (1983: Doomsday) Category:1983: Doomsday